I may not have been posting of late, but I have been writing.  Each time I file the piece away and deem it as not worthy of posting.  The thoughts are dark, dismal and discouraging.  My mother always said if you don’t have something nice to say don’t say it.  So, that’s what has been happening. 

My job is to encourage people.  Specifically, in a spiritual or a psychic way.  Just be a light trusting that whoever might happen upon what I write was supposed to read it.

So, I want to get back to my job.  I learned something new yesterday about breathing.  It might help somebody else who is in a dark place.  I know it helped me a little bit.  Channel surfing doing what I do so well as a couch potato I happened upon a PBS special featuring Peggy Cappy.  She was talking about alternate nostril breathing and something called pranayama, a practice of breathing with yoga.  You can look her up on YouTube. 

Sometimes it seems to me I am startled to an awareness that I haven’t taken a breath.  I guess my breathing just slows and becomes very shallow.  When that happens, I breathe deeply, and the show goes on.  My first exposure to something magical outside of my early traditional spiritual teachings was Parmahansa Yogananda who wrote, “Autobiography of a Yogi” in 1946.  It changed my life and in it Parmahansa spoke of Pranayama and yoga.  I was a junior in high school at the time and began doing the sun salutation.  Now, years later I have to wear slip-on shoes because I have difficulty tying my shoes.  My google searches for exercise generally involve chairs.  And, because of difficulty seeing and really bad joints what once was a not even thought out action of getting something out of a lower cabinet now involves a flashlight, a cushion or rug for my knees and time. 

I’d like to get back some mobility.  I’d like to be that much more encouraging and I’d like to look for that light at the end of the tunnel. 

So, breathe deeply.  Hold it and exhale.  With each breath imagine that you are breathing in healing energy, calming, soothing feelings, a colored healing light.  Imagine while you hold that breath that it is oxygenating your blood.  That it is love that envelopes you.  Breathe in slowly, huge big breaths starting from your belly and diaphragm moving up into the upper part of your chest, expanding your chest and hold the breath.  Then, when you exhale do so completely pushing out the breath from your belly and diaphragm and then emptying the upper part of your chest.  It is supposed to be a wave like movement.  I did find a lovely video online that shows skeletally what is going on and has a very nice accompaniment of Tibetan bells to time the breathing. 

Now, go look up how to do alternate nostril breathing.  Peggy says to practice it every day building up to 15 minutes a day.

With any of the breath work if you find yourself getting dizzy or light headed it is time to stop.  Just get used to the process and if you find yourself in a dark or dim place it is something that you can do without a lot of fanfare.

It’s a form of meditation because you are concentrating on the breathing.  You have temporarily closed off the worry we are all living with during this Coronavirus pandemic. 

And, when you are finished call up a friend or relative to tell them they matter to you.